The Missing

by Gary Chesla

  “Will she run into the dead out that way?” Bill asked sounding concerned.

  “The dead are everywhere, but there aren’t near as many in the mountains,” I replied.

  “How come?” Bill asked, suddenly becoming inquisitive.

  “There weren’t as many people living in the mountains when the infection started, so there weren’t as many people there to get infected,” I replied. “The dead were mostly in the cities at first, where there were more people to get infected and the infection was able to spread much faster there.”

  “How come the dead didn’t go up in the mountains looking for the living?” Bill asked. “They are always showing up at the fort.”

  “I feel the dead are lazy,” I replied. “I don’t think that is the real reason, but they always seem to follow the path of least resistance. Walking up into the mountains is hard so the dead don’t go there, they go where it is easier to walk. You’ve seen how they walk, maybe they can’t get up into the mountains. All I know is that there aren’t a lot of them in the mountains.”

  Bill seemed to mull this over for a few minutes before he continued.

  “What will she find in she went out through the trees in front of the fort?” Bill asked.

  “Well Bill,” I replied. “Let’s hope that she didn’t go that way. About a mile beyond those trees is Interstate 75 that runs between Lexington and Knoxville. After the dead had destroyed Lexington, they started going out and following the interstates, I guess because it was easy to go that way,” I replied. “Before I found you guys at the fort, I had just come down out of the mountains to check and see if they were still out on the interstate. I was hoping that they would be gone by now so I could try to go home, but there were still thousands of them out there. After I saw how many of them were still out on the interstate, I gave up trying to go back to Lexington for now.”

  “How many people lived in Lexington?” Bill asked. “You would think that they had all already gone south by now.”

  “Well it seems that for every one of the dead that went south, there are two or three of them coming north,” I replied. “I am just guessing that there are thousands of them roaming from city to city. I don’t know if they are looking for the living, or if they really don’t know what they are doing and are just roaming around from place to place, taking the path of least resistance and just aimlessly wandering around.”

  Bill seemed to be thinking again, I was surprised by that, I didn’t believe any of these people were capable of thinking things over this much.

  “How come they just don’t die,” Bill asked. “They don’t look like they are in very good shape, how are they still here?”

  “That I don’t know,” I replied. “All I know is that they are here. Why they are here, how they keep moving in the condition they are in, why they attack the living, all I can say is you will need to find someone a lot smarter than me to find out the answers to those questions.”

  “You seem to be a pretty smart guy to me,” Bill said. “You’ve managed to survive out there all by yourself.”

  “Not quite, I’ve had a lot of help,” I replied.

  “You did?” Bill asked looking confused.

  “I would have never made it without my buddy Bear,” I replied. “He is the real expert, I just follow his lead.”

  “If I were one of the dead, I know I would be afraid of him,” Bill laughed.

  “That’s the problem, the dead aren’t afraid of anything,” I replied. “I’ve seen Bear tear six of them apart, but they still kept trying to attack as if he wasn’t even there. But without any arms or legs left, they weren’t able to attack very well after he was done with them.”

  “Wow,” Bill exclaimed then a questioning look came over his face. “I thought if you got any parts of the dead in your mouth it would kill you, how come your dog didn’t die?”

  “It seems that whatever this infection is, it only affects humans, not animals,” I replied. “You’ve never seen a zombie squirrel, have you?”

  “That would be creepy,” Bill grinned.

  “Yeah, there is enough creepy stuff out there to deal without having to worry about zombie squirrels too,” I added.

  We were almost to the front of the fort when Bill had another question.

  “How many people have you run into, besides us at the fort?” Bill asked.

  “Only about ten or fifteen,” I replied.

  “How come you didn’t hook up with them?” Bill asked. “I’m sure they were happy to see you.”

  “Believe it or not, most of the people I’ve run into haven’t been very friendly, I guess it’s just hard for people to trust anyone these days,” I replied. “In fact, half of them tried to kill me. Bear and I mostly just stay to ourselves.”

  “No kidding,” Bill exclaimed.

  “When I discovered there were people at the fort, I watched you guys for three days before I attempted to contact you,” I added. “You can’t be too careful when the living are almost as bad as the dead. I was tempted to just keep heading back up into the mountains, but it has been so long since I’ve been able to talk to another living person, I decided to make contact with your group and hope for the best.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Bill replied. “We’ve needed someone like you for a long time. I know you probably haven’t noticed, but we really don’t know what we are doing.”

  I just chuckled then I said, “Is that right!”

  We finally reached the outside of the front gate.

  “Let’s try this again,” I said.

  “After what you told me, I hope Connie didn’t go out this way,” Bill said.

  “So do I, but regardless we need to find where she went if we are going to be able to find her,” I replied.

  I held the dress and the shoes out for Bear to smell again and told him to go find Connie.

  Bear sniffed around for a little, but after a few minutes he walked back over and sat down next to me and yawned.

  “Sorry Bill, I’m afraid we came up empty,” I said.

  “Thanks anyhow,” Bill replied. “At least you tried and thank your dog for me too. That’s more than anyone else would have done for me.”

  “I was surprised to hear Bill say that. I hadn’t particularly cared much for Bill up to this point, especially after that day at the cemetery. But maybe I had been a little quick to judge him, after spending some time with him today, he didn’t seem to be the cold arrogant person I thought he was. Maybe with a little guidance he would be fine.

  We walked back into the fort.

  Chapter 4

  The next morning, I again joined the daily meeting.

  Even though I felt the morning meetings were basically useless, I felt it would be rude not to attend. I didn’t feel these people

  knew what they were doing, and they didn’t care to change their ways, but that was no reason to be rude to them. They had welcomed me to their group, but I think they would have been happy to welcome anyone.

  I did appreciate the opportunity to be with people again. In their own way I knew they were happy that I was here, but it was just so damn hard to figure these people out.

  Yesterday after Bill and I returned to the fort, it reminded me of every other day I had spent here, they were all acting as if nothing unusual had happened and that everything was normal.

  At yesterday’s meeting, I saw the look of confusion in some of the men’s eyes, but in the afternoon when Bill and I returned, everyone that I saw had that same old unconcerned look on their faces. Ed slept all afternoon and I never saw him after our short talk in the morning. Bill sat around and talked to a few of the other men for the rest of the afternoon instead of looking for his wife. Just when I was beginning to change how I felt about them, these people never failed to disappoint.

  This morning all the men were at the meeting, including Ed and Bill. Bill looked well rested, Ed didn’t look as bad as he had looked yesterday morning, but he still looked tired and had big circles
under his eyes.

  I was shocked when Bill volunteered for burial duty again instead of spending the day to continue the search for his wife, and of course he was unanimously approved. Ed volunteered to join me on the wall today as a lookout. All the other jobs were filled by the same people that did them every day except for Fred and George. George had water duty all by himself today.

  I was wondering why Fred wasn’t helping George today, when Charlie said he had one final item that we needed to cover.

  “Gentlemen, I think we have a serious problem and I would appreciate any suggestions as to what we should do,” Charlie said.

  I was surprised to hear Charlie ask for help, he usually acted like he had everything under control, that all was well in paradise.

  “I’m sure you have all noticed that Fred is not at the meeting this morning. I just got a message from Fred a moment ago that his wife Betty has disappeared. Gentlemen, that is three women that have disappeared in the last three days. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but we can’t afford to lose any more people like this. No one knows what is happening or why it’s happening. Worst of all, I haven’t talked to anyone that knows what to do about it. Does anyone have any ideas?” Charlie asked. “Tom, you’re the only one I haven’t had an opportunity to ask about this matter. Do you have any suggestions about what we should do? Have you seen anything like this happen anywhere else that you have been?”

  “No, this is the first time I have ever seen anything like this happen,” I replied. “This is very strange.”

  “Do you have any idea why this is happening?” Charlie asked.

  “Since I didn’t know the women who have disappeared, I don’t have any insight into why they left the fort in the middle of the night,” I replied. “Does anyone have any idea why these women left the fort? Is there any reason you would know about why they wanted to leave? Is there something out there that they wanted, or have they ever expressed interest in going someplace else?”

  “Not that we would know about,” Charlie answered.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but have you been treating the women right?” I asked. “They didn’t leave because you were abusing them, and they wanted to get away from you?”

  “Now wait a minute,” Charlie started to protest.

  “I’m not accusing anyone, I just want to cover all the possibilities so I can better analyze the problem,” I said. “So, I can rule out that they left to get away from you men?”

  “You can rule that out,” Charlie replied.

  “So, if there was no reason why they would want to leave,” I said, “in my mind, that leaves only one other reason for their disappearance, someone took them.”

  “Who could have done that?” Charlie asked.

  “Do you think the dead took them?” George asked.

  “Both the front and rear gates were closed each morning after each of the women disappeared?” I asked.

  “Yes, the gates were closed and secured,” Charlie replied.

  “I think that would rule out the dead, they can’t open or close gates, they just pile up against them until the gates collapse.”

  The men all looked at each other.

  “Then who do you think took them?” Bill asked. “Other than you, we haven’t seen anyone else around here since we’ve been here and I’m sure you didn’t take them.”

  “I have another question,” Charlie joined in. “Why have only the women disappeared but not any of the men?”

  “Yeah, do we have to worry too,” Bill asked. “Or are only the women in danger?”

  I hope Bill didn’t intend for his question to mean how it sounded, I thought. I know in today’s world that it is every man for himself, but to feel relieved because you only had to be concerned about your wife being kidnapped and not you, was a sad commentary on how far society had sunk in the last year.

  “It’s just a thought, but other survivors could be moving through the hills like I was when I discovered that you were here,” I said. “It could be possible that there could be some people hiding out in the hills around the fort and they spotted the women outside the fort one day and they decided to sneak down here during the night and take them. I’m sure some people might consider women to be a valuable commodity now days. But I wouldn’t consider yourself safe just because you were a man, we don’t know why this is happening, so none of us should feel safe.”

  “So you think someone is coming down here at night to take our women?” Charlie asked.

  “I’m not saying anything for sure, I am just saying that is one possibility,” I replied. “But before we get too focused on that one possibility, we need to determine what is and what isn’t happening. Bill and I were outside looking for Connie yesterday and we didn’t see any strange tracks in the dirt that would indicate anyone has been near the fort. We also didn’t find any tracks to indicate that the women walked away from the fort. So we really don’t know one way or the other what happened. All the evidence seems to point to the possibility that the women are still here in the fort.”

  “We’ve checked everywhere in the fort, we know they aren’t here,” Charlie said. “I agree with your other theory. Someone must be sneaking down here at night and taking our women. So what do you suggest we do?”

  “Since everything seems to happen at night,” I replied. “We need to set up lookouts during the night. If this happens again, we will either see the girls sneaking out or someone sneaking into the fort. Either way, the only way we are going to find out what is going on is to have someone stay up and keep watch at night.”

  After a moment of the men talking among themselves, Charlie spoke up again.

  “I think that sounds like a good idea,” he said. “Do I have a volunteer to stand watch tonight?”

  “Before we start asking for volunteers,” I interrupted, “What do you say we do this. If Ed and Bill agree to help me, Bear and I, Ed and Bill will stand guard tonight. A woman has disappeared each of the last three nights, I would think there is a good chance that it could happen again tonight. Between the three of us, if something goes down tonight, we should see something that will help us understand how this is happening. Once we understand how it is happening, then we will have a better understanding of why it is happening. Once we know the how and why, we can then decide what to do about it.”

  “That sounds good to me, I know the other women will be happy to know we have someone watching the fort tonight,” Charlie said. “All in favor of Tom, Ed and Bill watching the fort tonight say Aye.”

  A chorus of ayes sounded.

  “OK, the ayes have it, Tom, you work out the details with Ed and Bill and let me know if there is anything you need.”

  As the group broke up, I overheard George and Charlie talking.

  “I’m glad we got that problem solved,” George said.

  “Me too,” Charlie added. “I’m always amazed at what we can accomplish when we all put our heads together.”

  I just shook my head and walked back to my site. Like I had said, just when I think these people are getting their act together, they do something to bring me back to reality.

  I had just got back to my site when Ed and Bill walked over to join me.

  “What do you need us to do?” Ed asked. “What gate do you want me to watch?”

  “Do you want me to start watching the back gate?” Bill joined in.

  “No, I’ll get together with you tonight when it is starting to get dark,” I replied. “I don’t think we’ll see anything until sometime after sundown.”

  “So, what do we do until sundown?” Bill asked.

  “Well Ed and I are going to stand lookout up on the wall today,” I replied. “You could help me by going out behind the fort and bringing in the sticks I cut the other day. I have them lying out on the rocks in the sun to dry out. You can also bring in the strips of bark drying on the rocks next to the sticks.”

  “Are you going to build a fire or something?” Bill asked.

/>   “No, we are going to make some more arrows,” I replied.

  “I thought you said arrows made out of sticks weren’t very good?” Ed asked.

  “They aren’t, but I’m starting to run low on my good arrows,” I replied. “I need to save the good arrows for hunting. Until I get somewhere where I can find some more decent arrows, we’ll have to make-due with the homemade variety. They will come in handy around the fort, but I’ll have to let the dead get in closer than I would like before I take a shot, but it will be better than throwing stones at them.”

  Bill nodded, “OK, I can do that.”

  Bill turned and started to walk towards the back gate, but he stopped. He appeared to be thinking, then he turned and looked back at me.

  “Tom, I was wondering,” Bill said. “Why did you pick me and Ed to help you tonight? Why not one of the other men?”

  “Two reasons,” I replied. “I’ve gotten to know you and Ed better than I have any of the others. I trust you a little more. Second, both of you have lost your wives over the last few days. I’m hoping that you are a little like me and would welcome the opportunity to get some revenge.”

  Bill smiled and said, “Thanks.” Then he turned around and headed for the back gate. I smiled to myself when I thought I saw a little spring appear in Bill’s step as he walked away.

  Ed climbed up on the platform that ran across the front wall of the fort, I climbed up next and Bear was close behind me. Bear was a climber, I have seen him climb rocks, cliffs and even a few trees, so climbing an eight-foot ladder to get up on the wall was not a problem. However, his climbing ability only worked in one direction, he could go up, but he couldn’t climb down, he had to jump. I didn’t have any problem letting him jump down off the wall here in the fort, but there have been times I’ve had to carry him down on my shoulders because I was worried that he would hurt himself because of how high he ended up climbing. He is fearless and would jump off a cliff if I gave him the word, but I not as fearless as he is and prefer not to take too many chances with my buddy. I’m not a vet and have no idea what to do if he would break a leg.